Forged Steel
by SelDear
Summary: A meeting with a freedom fighter against the Goa'uld causes SG-1 to evaluate themselves and their relationships with each other. final chapter posted
1. Chapter One

**AUTHOR'S NOTES**: This was written as the second episode of one of two Virtual Seasons for Stargate SG-1 Season Six. The premise was that Daniel didn't 'die' in 'Meridian' and things continued on from there. However, after eight episodes, we were unable to get anything more from our writers, and the Virtual Season ceased. The other VS6 episode I wrote was entitled 'Symbiosis'.

**Forged Steel**

**Part One**

"The MALP reports significant flora and fauna on P9U-772." Sam indicated the screen in the briefing room with the hand that held the remote control. She regarded the deep greens and browns of the rainforest-like terrain for a moment before turning back to the General and the rest of SG-1. "The area around the Stargate appears to sustain a broad variety of life forms – most of them curious, but not apparently intelligent." Behind her, she heard the squeak of a small furry creature who had chosen that moment in the recording to inspect the MALP camera. She smiled at the astonishment on the faces of the General, the Colonel and Daniel. It had surprised her, too, when she first viewed the recording. Teal'c's eyebrow had merely arched at the sight of the animal pressing its nose against the camera lens and chattering happily away to itself.

Knowing the little creature would shortly find something else to capture its interest, Sam continued her summary. "Initial MALP telemetry indicated this planet as a possible site for the proposed off-world training facility. The heavy tree cover among the hills would provide such a facility with a measure of camouflage and protection, as well as a training area. However, due to the nature of the terrain, we haven't been able to send a UAV survey through."

Daniel leaned forward in his chair, "Any natives, Sam?"

"We sent the MALP in the most easily navigated direction from the Stargate...the images we got back from it..." She pressed a button to flip to the next segment of video and a smile tugged one corner of her mouth in enjoyment of Daniel's interest at the sight of huge moss-covered pyramids amidst crumbling stone dwellings. "This site was located several hundred metres from the gate."

"So..." Colonel O'Neill lifted his hands from the table, tilting his head a little in comedic ingenuity, "Any natives, Carter?"

General Hammond took that moment to tell his 2IC, "Your mission is to find out, Colonel."

"Ah, so there _was_ a point to this briefing." Evidently the Colonel was in one of his less serious moods. It was amusing now – it could get trying later. He swivelled his chair around to regard General Hammond. "To P9U-772 we go?"

If the General was amused, he didn't show it. "SG-1 will be doing a four-day recon of the area, assessing the suitability of the terrain for personnel training; determining the possibility of a Goa'uld threat to such a facility. Dr. Jackson, you will be looking for anything that can tell us about the people who used to live on this planet – and what happened to them. You ship out at 0800 hours tomorrow."

**----**

Daniel stared at the lighting chevrons and frowned in thought.

His team was arrayed beside him – Sam checking her straps to his right, Teal'c standing ramrod-straight to his left and Jack shifting restlessly next to Teal'c.

"Daniel Jackson, you seem preoccupied." Teal'c's deep quiet voice broke through his reverie.

"Oh...er..." Dragging his thoughts away from the mental comparison of the stone temples on P9U-772 with those found in northern Laos seven years ago, Daniel took a moment to focus his scattered thoughts.

"Daniel?" Jack peered around their team-mate, eyebrows raised. "Wanna get back to Earth for this mission?"

"Uh... I was just wondering if I should have packed Dr. Nova Vijaya's diary from the expedition to northern Burma. They discovered a temple of the same style design – it also had carvings in pillared bases. The most interesting thing about Dr. Vijaya's discovery was the chamber with Goa'uld writings they found beneath the temple. Of course, the results of the expedition were never published and all data pertaining to the dig was confiscated. I really should dig it out. It's entirely possible that the people who constructed the Vijayan temple in Burma were the same ones who constructed these..."

He saw Jack's grimace and stopped his 'lecture', grinning, but the older man's words were nonchalant. "You can always send back for it later, Daniel."

"Chevron six encoded!" The voice of the Stargate operator emitted from the gateroom speakers, letting the waiting team know how close they were to starting off on their mission.

"Once the wormhole establishes, they'll be linking up with the MALP on -772 to check things out. It'll be another minute before we go through," Sam said, shifting her pack on her shoulders to get it more comfortably settled.

As Daniel watched her adjust her pack, Sergeant Davis's voice over the speakers declared, "Chevron seven, locked!" And the wave of energy particles billowed out in magnificent visual display. "Receiving MALP telemetry..." There was a moment of silence, then, "Oh my..."

The unexpected exclamation caused them and the SFs in the room to turn and look up at the control room window. "Sergeant?"

Sergeant Davis glanced up at General Hammond, standing just behind him. "Sir?"

"SG-1, you'd better come and take a look at this."

With astonished and apprehensive glances, they went.

'This' was an old man inspecting the MALP.

He looked at least seventy and was in need of a good shave. His clothing was simple and shabby, but it looked sturdy enough as the man fingered the radio transmitter and craned his head to peer behind the camera – giving SG-1 and the General an unpleasant view down a grubby vest.

"Peep show, anyone?" Jack got four reproachful looks for that comment. Glaring at Jack was certainly preferable to looking at the screen. "Are we gonna try communication, sir?"

The General reached for the microphone as Sergeant Davis switched the output to the MALP speaker. "This is Major General George Hammond of the United States Air Force. Please identify yourself."

The old man leapt back, tripping over something and falling back heels-over-head. He stared at the MALP and began gabbling away in a long string of syllables that made Daniel start in astonishment. He knew that language as well as he knew English.

"Daniel?"

"It's Abydonian," he breathed in disbelief. The liquid sounds of the language of Sha'ure's people flowed into him like water into a dry stream. "He's speaking in Abydonian."

**End of Part One**


	2. Chapter Two

**Forged Steel**

**Part Two**

Jack's patience was wearing thin. Carter and Teal'c had been gone for nearly two hours checking out the site with the pyramids and the ruins, while he was left keeping an eye on their team-mate and his new friend.

This was all very well, except that Jack was bored. Daniel had been translating the old man's words at first, but as time went on and the speeches grew longer, the linguist ceased to explain, instead choosing to make his own replies to the guy.

In spite of repeated inquiries the old man hadn't seemed to understand Daniel's requests for his name, instead rambling off on other topics as Jack and Daniel exchanged looks of exasperation and resignation.

Privately, Jack was calling him 'the crazy old guy'.

"Well?" Jack demanded after another fluent exchange in Abydonian was completed. They'd been through the basics of the SGC meet-and-greet-101 'Who are you? What are you doing here? Where are your people?' and given him the stock-standard, 'We're peaceful explorers from a planet called Earth...' introduction.

"Um..." Daniel glanced up sheepishly. "Well, I was asking him about Abydos – it seems he hasn't lived there for many years now – although he drops in from time to time. I asked about his family there and he...uh...was telling me about his grandkids."

Old people the world over. Give them a chance to talk about anything and it was kids or grandkids. Jack grimaced, feeling a twinge of the familiar guilt and regret. Grandkids were one more thing Jack O'Neill would go without in the grand scheme of things. "I thought the Abydonians didn't go through the gate while Ra ruled."

Turning to the old man, Daniel spoke in Abydonian, his tongue moving smoothly over the inflections while the old man looked from him to Jack. Then the old man gabbled something, grinning as he indicated Jack. Daniel glanced at his friend, almost embarrassed and replied back.

The old guy chuckled.

"Daniel?"

"Uh... It doesn't translate."

"Sure it doesn't. Translate it for me anyway."

"He...um...said you were very edgy for someone who's done so much."

"And that doesn't translate?"

Daniel took a deep breath. "Well, the actual comparison he used was...'you were like a _yagesh_ with no _temma_.'"

Daniel was doing it deliberately. Jack just knew he was. "And a _yagesh_ with no _temma_, means...?"

"It doesn't translate."

All right then. Daniel wasn't going to tell him. Fine. He'd just ask Teal'c later on. The big guy would tell him.

"So what's the deal with going through the gate?" Jack turned the conversation back to the original question he'd asked. "Kasuf said nobody but the gods went through the Stargate."

"Some people did. Most never returned – they probably couldn't find the co-ordinates for Abydos so they could return."

"Or they got captured and killed by someone on the other side."

"Or that. This man, the Returned One..."

"'The Returned One'?"

"Jack do you want to hear this or not?"

"Okay, okay!"

"The Returned One is a legend among the Abydonians of Kasuf's village. He's the only man in living memory to leave Abydos through the Stargate and come back. His family thought he was a little...touched when he returned, but apart from that..."

_In other words, he really is a crazy old guy._ Jack decided against saying the words out loud as the old man bobbed his head up and down and jumped off the stone. Then he lifted his face up to the sky, holding himself still as if listening for something. Jack and Daniel both looked up with a sense of dread. This would be just the time to discover a mothership coming to land.

No sound.

Jack clicked his radio, "Carter?"

A moment later, the radio crackled noisily. "Sir? Is everything okay?"

He looked over at Daniel, who shrugged and just said, "Yeah, it's peachy around...here..." He trailed off, staring at the crazy old guy.

The 'Returned One', legend of Abydos, was holding his arms out from his body and doing 'airplanes' in the scrubby grass.

Carter's anxious voice buzzed from the radio. "Colonel?"

"Yeah, Carter. We're fine. Our new friend is just..." Jack tried to find a suitable word to describe the old man's childish behaviour and came up blank. "Everything's fine."

"Teal'c is taking a look at the vegetation on the pyramids, sir. It doesn't look like the Goa'uld have been here in centuries."

"O'Neill," Teal'c's calm, measured voice emerged from the radio. "Inform Daniel Jackson that the carvings on the temples are indeed similar to those he showed me in his office."

Jack glanced over at Daniel who shrugged, "Guess I'll be sending back for Dr. Vijaya's diary after all."

The sound of distant thunder made them both look up at the still, clear sky. Alarms began sounding in Jack's mind. He thumbed the radio on, "Carter, Teal'c, report!"

It took a moment for them to respond and when they did, Jack's blood chilled, "Sir, we've got an incoming alkesh."

"Get back to the gate _now_! We'll hold position – they can't know we're here."

"Copy that, sir." The contact ended and Jack turned to peer into the forest where his team-mates had last been seen several hours ago. It would take them at least fifteen to twenty minutes at a dead run to make it back to the gate. In the meantime, he and Daniel would have to hold the gate – with their unexpected guest.

The suspicious bastard in Jack suddenly started yelling for all he was worth.

If the Goa'uld hadn't been here in centuries, why would they suddenly turn up – within a couple of hours of SG-1's arrival on the planet?

He glanced over at the crazy old man, still doing airplanes in the grass. Call him suspicious and paranoid – and there was no doubt Daniel would do so later – but it wouldn't surprise him one bit if this had all been a trap – with the old guy as the bait.

"He's not a traitor, Jack." Jack hid a grimace, Daniel knew him _way_ too well. Which meant he shouldn't be surprised at Jack's refusal to look at this as a coincidence.

"Daniel..."

The younger man held his gaze. "I didn't tell you the rest of the story – he kept telling the Abydonians that Ra was no god – told them that there were other creatures out there who also pretended to be gods. The Abydonians wanted to believe him, but Ra heard about the insurrection _San y'kel_ – the Returned One – was trying to start and his men tried to hunt him down. He vanished into the desert some twenty years ago and hasn't been seen since."

"How do you know he's not an impostor or that the Goa'uld haven't gotten to him first? Brainwashed him or something? It can't be a coincidence that they haven't been here for hundreds of years and then turn up within moments of our arrival." Jack gestured at the old man who had stopped playing around and was watching them with his head slightly tilted to one side. "Remember what Nirrti did with Cassie the first time we went to Hanka? She was a walking bomb designed to take us in."

"Jack, I don't know how I know – I just do!" Daniel indicated the old guy. "He's like us, Jack. Wanted by the Goa'uld for defying them, if nothing else. Despite his rebellion against Ra, he was one of their own and most Abydonians didn't want to hand him over to Ra. He must have come through the gate and been hunted by the Goa'uld all these years."

"Why would they hunt one crazy old man?"

"Because he fit into the Abydonian society and sowed doubt there – the doubt that you and I later worked upon when showing the Abydonians Ra was an alien impostor. He's been travelling from world to world developing the belief in the locals that the Goa'uld aren't gods. He can do it, because he's just a 'harmless old man'."

Jack looked into the intense blue gaze of his friend, then over at the old man who had stopped his games and was watching Jack back. He jabbered something at Daniel who replied back. The old man grinned and started waving his hands about and making gestures.

With Daniel standing there glaring at him, he didn't have a lot of choice about sending the old guy through. Besides, Jack had seen enough killing in his time to be reluctant to end an old guy's life in the possibility the man might have betrayed them. "Okay, I'm sending you and the old guy back through the gate with the supplies. I'll wait for Carter and Teal'c to get back and we'll head through together."

Naturally, Daniel didn't look happy about that either. "We can send him back alone..."

"Daniel, who else on the base speaks Abydonian?"

It should have been a rhetorical question. Of course, Daniel had an answer, "Ferretti."

"Ferretti's not fluent – and SG-2 was due out an hour ago. I'm sending you back with the old guy, the supplies and the MALP. We'll follow shortly. Don't argue with me, Dr. Jackson – dial the gate!" With an incoming alkesh, the last thing he needed was one more team-member to worry about. And that wasn't even including the possible liability the old man could be.

He wanted to go back through the wormhole with Daniel and the old guy – just to keep an eye on the old man. The appearance of the alkesh was too timely to be coincidental, or so said the tactician in him. But on the other side of the wormhole was Hammond and a whole heap of SF's. Even if Daniel couldn't or wouldn't protect himself from whatever threat the old man represented, there would a whole lot more people than just Jack to do the job.

Daniel had punched in the co-ordinates for Earth and the gate opened.

"Sierra Golf Charlie, this is Sierra Golf One-Niner."

"This is Sierra Golf Charlie, go ahead Sierra Golf One-Niner."

"We've got an incoming alkesh, sir, may or may not be related to our...um...guest here. At any rate, I'm sending him and Daniel through the gate with the supplies. Carter and Teal'c are on their way from the site – ETA ten minutes. I'll be holding the gate for them. Take the old guy and get Fraiser to check him out. And I recommend we don't leave him unattended."

"Recommendation noted, Colonel. Do you want reinforcements?"

"Negative. I've got the missile launcher if things get bad. There's no point in sending more people through – we'll be back before dinner. Promise. Sierra Golf One-Niner out."

Daniel was already moving the FRED through as the old man jabbered at him. Then the old man fell silent as the whine of a glider sounded overhead. Jack decided he'd better contact Carter and Teal'c again just to make sure. They hadn't heard any glider-fire, but there was no way to tell... "Guys?"

"Halfway there, sir."

"We do not yet appear to be spotted, O'Neill."

"Right, try to keep it that way. I'll be waiting for you at the gate."

"Sir..."

Jack repeated his words, more slowly and with distinct emphasis. "I will be waiting for you at the gate when you get here."

"Yes, sir." Carter sounded resigned as the radio clicked off and Jack went up the stairs to help move the FRED through.

"Take him through post-gate and have an SF posted on him at all times."

"Jack, he's not dangerous..."

"That alkesh came from somewhere. They knew we were here. Maybe he isn't dangerous and maybe he is. If he's not, no harm done; if he is, we've done our job." Daniel opened his mouth and Jack help up one hand. "Daniel, just go."

"Going!" Daniel turned on his heel, gesturing to the open wormhole with one hand as he looked at the old man and said something in Abydonian.

The crazy old guy muttered something and , from the corner of his eye, Jack saw Daniel turn to look at him, before replying in a resigned tone of voice. The old man snorted something, then tottered up the stairs to the open wormhole and stepped through the event horizon like he was taking a stroll. Daniel met Jack's gaze for a moment, his mouth set in mutinous disagreement, before stepping through with the usual _glop_.

Jack sighed and turned back, peering through the forest, looking for his team-mates as the wormhole disengaged.

He hoped they were okay.

He hoped Daniel and the crazy old guy were okay.

Damn, he hoped he'd made the right decision.

**----**

Jack looked through the door of Daniel's office. "Daniel, Hammond's cleared us to go to Abydos."

Daniel leapt to his feet. _San y'kel_ looked up from the book he was poring through, the bright eyes blinking as he regarded Daniel.

"_You are leaving?_"

Hoping the old man didn't see his eagerness to part company with him, Daniel searched for a suitably diplomatic answer, "_Uh, yes. We are going to Abydos to see if my father-by-law's people will take you in._"

The old man snorted, "_Why should they? I am but a crazy elder, touched by the sun._" The gestures of his hands made the signs that indicated madness in Abydonian. He looked around the room, "_Can I not remain here? You have many interesting writings that I wish to explore_."

Daniel managed to hide a grimace. Since Janet had cleared him, the old man had been 'assigned' to the company of Daniel with an SF to be silently present at all times. It had been all very well for the first hour, but in the confines of Daniel's office, the old man had begun to poke around.

Books had been pulled from the shelves and their contents riffled through before bits of paper were stuck between the pages. The conversation had been more circuitous than just about any conversation Daniel had ever had with anyone – with the exception of the monk they'd met on Kheb, or perhaps the harcesis child Shifu. Any questions Daniel asked were neatly shunted aside by mysterious answers, or further questions.

"_These books are written in the language of my people. You would not understand them_."

"_You could explain them to me_."

"_Well, you see...I have duties that also require me to be elsewhere_..." Daniel didn't really want to say that the old man was frustrating to be around. There was so much that the old man had seen and witnessed, but years of being hunted by the Goa'uld seemed to have made him very close-mouthed about his experiences. Yet _San y'kel_ had managed to avoid the questions Daniel wished him to answer most without seeming at all cagey.

"_Ah,_" thin lips pursed together, "_duty is a difficult mistress to serve, Daniel Jackson_."

"Daniel?" Jack was impatient to get going. "Are we getting a move on? SG-13 is due to report back in an hour and we don't want to mess up Davis' schedule by forcing them to report late..."

He nodded at Jack and turned back to the old man. "_I will leave you with my friend, Sam. She will not understand what you say, but she can...uh...show you some things_." He'd been about to say 'keep an eye on you' before deciding that would be too unsubtle. "_My friend and I will not be away very long._"

Another slip of paper was popped between the pages of a book and the book dumped on the pile of others on the desk through which the old man had fingered. It was a very large pile. "_You will take me to your friend_?"

"_Yes. If you will follow me..._"

"Daniel?"

He turned to Jack, "I'm going to leave him with Sam. I'll meet you in the gateroom in fifteen. Is that soon enough?"

Jack shrugged. "You know, if he breaks any of Carter's experiments she'll kill him."

"Given the number of times you've upset something she's been working on, I'm surprised you're not dead at least a dozen times over."

"Hey, it's my natural charm."

Daniel snorted.

"It is!"

**End of Part Two**


	3. Chapter Three

**Forged Steel**

**Part Three**

Sam was doing some calculations on planetary alignments. Some of the other SG-teams had complained about bumpy rides through the Stargate and she suspected the program which adjusted the computer co-ordinates for planetary drift was off by a few decimal places. It wouldn't be enough to negate the connection from Stargate to Stargate, but it would be enough to make the ride a little rough.

The old man was of less interest to her than he was to Daniel. She agreed with the Colonel about the suspicious nature of the Goa'uld appearance on P7U-992 – Teal'c's estimate of the last time a mothership had been on P7U-992 was several hundred years. It was too coincidental that within hours of SG-1 arriving on the planet, they found themselves under attack by the Goa'uld. However, she wasn't so sure the old man had been party to the attack. Bait, yes; suspect, no.

There was a beep as someone outside swiped their card and the door rolled back. Sam glanced up as Daniel entered, the old man stumping along behind him. The dark eyes fixed her with lively curiosity and the man jabbered something to Daniel which made one corner of Daniel's mouth pull up in a smile.

Deciding against inquiring what the comment had been, Sam raised her eyebrows. "Daniel?" Last she knew, her team-mate was perfectly happy to talk with the old man. What had changed?

"Uh...here, he's yours."

Astonishment replaced curiosity. "Daniel, what am I supposed to..." He'd already turned and begun speaking to the old man in Abydonian.

The old man nodded, apparently not minding being handed over to her in the manner of an unwanted parcel. His gaze passed over the computer banks on the opposite wall, across the benches with her present set of naquadah experiments and came to rest on her.

"Daniel, what am I supposed to do with him?"

Daniel had the cagey look of someone who'd just dropped a live grenade into someone's lap and was about to hightail it out of there before it blew up.

"Er...I don't know. Gotta run. Jack and I are going to Abydos to talk with Kasuf - see if they're willing to take him in." That bewildered Sam: if they were going to Abydos, why not take him with them? Why dump their guest on her? "I'm going to be late. Just...keep an eye on him." He gave her a brief smile, "Hopefully we'll have Kasuf when we get back..."

"Daniel!" The yell came from just down the corridor: Colonel O'Neill impatient to get going. "Carter, don't hold him up, we gotta wormhole to catch..."

Daniel flashed her a brief, brilliant smile as he patted her on the arm. "Sorry, Sam. Look, I'm sure you guys will get alone fine... I've got to run..."

"Daniel!" The Colonel sounded distinctly agitated, but Sam held Daniel's gaze with hypnotic intensity.

She wasn't about to let Daniel go without some considerably more detailed explanations. Why her? Teal'c understood Abydonian and he wasn't working on planetary alignment calculations, why not him?

A beep distracted her from Daniel. The old man was standing at her second computer, poking the keyboard. Mild exasperation flooded her as she turned her head to look at her 'guest'. "Excuse me..." Out of the corner of her eye, Sam caught the flash of movement as her team-mate adroitly fled the coop.

_Great._

Another beep made her turn back to the old man. Emboldened by the lack of response to his action, the old man had continued to press the buttons on the keyboard, watching as the characters appeared on the screen.

"Please don't do that," she asked him, knowing he didn't understand her. Getting up, she gently removed his hands from the keyboard. "No." She shook her head, silently cursing Daniel for leaving her to look after the old man. Glancing around her office, she looked for something she could use to occupy him and her eye lighted upon an item she had recently requisitioned back from Area 51.

Even after four years of study by the best linguists the SGC could lay their hands on, the language of Machello's little handheld computer was still a mystery. Everything on it had long since been copied into data files, both hardcopy and softcopy and the device had been examined, x-rayed and electron-bombarded to a fare-thee-well. However, all attempts to work out exactly how it did what it did were unsuccessful. It had taken Machello a lifetime to develop the technology with his peculiar brand of genius and it would probably take the scientists of Earth a lifetime to decipher exactly how he'd created such incredible technologies.

The handheld computer had been recalled to the SGC after SG-12 had encountered a similar device in another culture. Lieutenant Vaillant of SG-12 was coming down from the labs on level 6 later today to examine the similarities and differences between the two devices under Sam's guidance.

Sam felt no compunction in handing over such an intricate piece of technology to the Returned One. So far, the little handheld computer had remained impervious to anything they brought to bear against it – short of smashing it with a sledgehammer. How much damage could one old man inflict?

Taking the device, she put it in the old man's hands and showed him how to display the screens one by one. He regarded it with interest and practically yanked it from her grip, his calloused fingers moving nimbly over the controls and exclaiming with delight as he flipped from 'page' to 'page'.

With an inaudible sigh, Sam returned to her work, only glancing up occasionally to find the old man still fiddling with the device. At least one of them was having fun. She'd been through the calculations and couldn't find anything that indicated the program was wrong – but something had to be causing the bumpy ride...

A long nose peered over her shoulder – and it wasn't the Colonel's. Sam drew back in surprise as the old man poked a finger at the screen, then jabbed a finger at the keyboard.

"Hey, stop that! Those calculations..." It struck Sam that she was talking to someone who couldn't understand her. Turning around so he was forced to move out of her personal space, she looked across at Machello's device, sitting quietly on the table with the screen blinking.

_Blinking? It never used to blink..._

Keeping a wary eye on the old man, who had now put his hands ostentatiously behind his back, Sam picked up the device and frowned. The screen was one she'd seen before – but it was flashing on and off, as if the power source was low. Turning the device off, she almost dropped it on the table as the old man began tapping random keys on the keyboard, humming to himself.

_The calculations!_ She was about to snap at him when she realised he'd opened another file and was typing into that instead. Gibberish – or so it seemed to her. She shook her head and pulled his hands from the keyboard.

"No!" If her voice was louder than usual and her tones more emphatic, then that was just to get her point across. The stuff here in her office was not to be played with – as she kept trying to remind the Colonel. At least Colonel O'Neill knew better than to touch anything on her computer. "Look, if you want to type, you can use the other computer, okay?"

He regarded her with amusement, the wrinkles on his face creasing deeply. Sam sighed and gently prodded him over to the second computer where she opened up a file and pointed to the screen. "You can type here." The dark eyes stared at her for a long moment, before she sighed again and put her hands to the keyboard, tapping her fingers across the keys and then pointing at the letters. "See? Type."

She sat him down on a stool and he watched her return to her desk before he began to type in long strings of characters. Sam shook her head ruefully. She was mellowing. Seven or eight years ago, she would have had about as much patience with someone like this as the Colonel usually had with scientists and people who 'techno-babbled' him – which was to say, none at all.

Beginning on the calculations again, Sam had just worked her way through four sets of variables in the calculations when there was a beep from the other computer again.

Not content with typing into a text file, the old man had begun opening other programs and was playing around with them – changing the data in them. Valuable data that she needed for her experiments and reports. She had backups of course, so the data wasn't lost, but the old man's antics were beginning to irritate her.

Sensing her observation, the wrinkled face looked to her and grinned broadly while she ground her teeth in frustration.

Daniel was a dead man when he got back from Abydos.

**----**

Teal'c observed the Returned One.

Major Carter had come to him with the elderly man nearly an hour ago and explained the problem with keeping the old man in her office. Understanding her agitation and for the mental comfort of his team-mate, Teal'c sat the old man down in his room and let him play with the candles used for meditation. There was no conceivable danger in allowing _San y'kel_ the run of this room. While Major Carter's office was filled with delicate and intricate objects that were certainly not to be meddled with, Teal'c's room contained only the most basic of furnishings – a Spartan simplicity.

So the Returned One of Abydos was dribbling wax onto a saucer and poking his finger about in the half-melted wax and chattering to himself. The syllables were random and meaningless to Teal'c – although he understood Abydonian, the old man was not speaking in that language. Perhaps Daniel Jackson might have known, but he was presently involved in finding his father-in-law on Abydos and informing him of the presence of the Returned One.

As the elderly man dabbled about, Teal'c considered him.

Legend not only among the Abydonians, the old man was known on other planets of Goa'uld occupancy. He had sowed seeds of disbelief in many different cultures under Apophis' rule and Teal'c had been called upon to put down such minor rebellions against the gods. Such actions had brought him no joy, only shame and regret as he did the will of his god, unable to bend Apophis' decree far enough to spare those whom he was required to destroy.

Glancing up from the puddle of wax he was dripping from one candle to another, the Returned One regarded Teal'c solemnly. "_You once served the gods._"

"_I did_."

"_You were an important man_."

"_I was the First Prime of Apophis_." 'Important' was not something Teal'c had ever cared for. His position had been something he could use to protect his family and mitigate Apophis' evil. "_I served him_."

"_You did not believe, though_."

"_No_." As a young man, Teal'c had discovered the deception of the Goa'uld. The 'spark of doubt' Bratac had seen and nurtured in his protégé had grown from a tiny flame to a raging fire. Teal'c grew to be a warrior of renowned skill and ferocity, but none of his peers guessed that the ferocity was for a dream whose time had not yet come. It had taken a room full of prisoners and one man's plea for help to start Teal'c down the path he had trodden for the last six years. A path which had been hard and long and scorned by many Jaffa, but which had led to the freedom of others who saw that it was only through the Jaffa that the Goa'uld survived and thrived.

"_Your 'god' is dead_." Teal'c did not question how the old man knew. One who had lived so long in hiding from the Goa'uld would have his ways of gaining the information he needed.

"_Indeed. But my people still live in slavery to the Goa'uld_."

_San y'kel_ was growing a wax stalagmite on the table. "_You regard it as your work to free them?_"

"_Yes_."

"_Should it not be their own work to free themselves_?"

"_There are already some who have taken that first step_," Teal'c stated, thinking of Rak'nor and the other Jaffa warriors under Teal'c's command. "_In the history of the Tau'ri, there are those who have known no other life but slavery and they must be led gently towards freedom_."

"_Freedom is a great thing to strive for, but birds kept in captivity cannot always fly when released_." The dark eyes blinked solemnly. "_You should remember that_."

Teal'c considered the old man's words. Part of him rebelled at the thought of any of his people remaining under the control of the Goa'uld, subject to their every whim and command. Yet another part knew the old man's words to be true. Not everyone would adapt to the rule of their own life – even among the Tau'ri of Earth, there were many for whom the excess of choice available brought them little but trouble.

Distantly, a siren began to blare. The old man's head swivelled to look at the door, his little tower of wax forgotten. "_What is that_?"

It was the signal to indicate that the Stargate had been opened from off-world. Down on level 28, the rostered Special Forces personnel would be filing into the gateroom to take up their position around the edges of the room. General Hammond would emerge from his office to come down to the control room and see what was happening and whatever technician was on-duty in the control room would wait patiently for the IDC to come through to inform him who was demanding entry from the other side of the wormhole. Running through a list of possibilities, Teal'c hoped it was O'Neill and Daniel Jackson returning from Abydos rather than some SG-team fleeing for their life.

However, no change of expression showed on his face, "_It is nothing to be concerned about_," Teal'c told him.

"_Yet a great noise is made for it_." A slight smile touched the lips of the elderly man. "_That is no small thing, I think_." He returned to his contemplation of the candle. "_These people are not your people, yet you think much of them_."

"_They are companions I am proud to fight alongside_." Friends with honesty, courage, honour and strength.

"_And if they betrayed you?_"

"_They would not_."

"_You seem certain_."

The doubt of the old man sparked anger in Teal'c. "_I am certain. My own people call me traitor, name me shol'va with no compunction. My friends have never betrayed me – even when I betrayed them_." The memory of his brief return in allegiance to Apophis still shamed him. As a warrior who had known freedom from slavery, he should have fought harder against the mental hooks the Goa'uld fixed within him.

"_We are always certain of those we trust – until they prove themselves untrustworthy_." There was a sadness in the old man's voice which spoke of experience.

Was there anything Teal'c could say to that? No. He continued to watch the old man, saddened. While a legend in his own right, _San y'kel_ had spent his life running from the Goa'uld. His wife had borne him one son before Ra took her for his concubine. In anger, the young man had followed the Goa'uld through the Stargate pressing what he thought were the keys Ra's Jaffa had pressed. It was probably that miscalculation which saved him: he found himself on another planet, being hailed as a god by the people who greeted him. Over the next years and months he went from planet to planet, following the Goa'uld, learning their secrets, subverting their people.

When he returned to Abydos, he was no longer recognised as one of them. He had seen too much, done too much to be accepted back among the people from whom he had come. So _San y'kel_ had sowed the seeds of doubt in the people, hugged his grandchildren and left Abydos behind.

And SG-1 would return him to Abydos – to the people who now believed openly what they had hoped silently when last he was there. Perhaps by now the grandchildren of the Returned one would have had children and he would live out his days surrounded by the family he had never before possessed.

A knock at the door interrupted Teal'c's thoughts.

"Hey, Teal'c!"

"O'Neill, please enter."

O'Neill poked his head in the door. "We're back."

"I am aware of that, O'Neill." Seeing his friend roll his eyes, Teal'c reflected on how enjoyable it was to occasionally tug O'Neill's leash by returning Teal'c's own version of O'Neill's humour to him.

"Kasuf's up with Daniel in the infirmary. We're briefing in half an hour – apparently Kasuf was about to send for us anyway – the boys found another chamber with writing on the walls and wanted Daniel to come and look it over." O'Neill grumbled, "I practically had to drag him through the wormhole backwards – he wanted to stay on Abydos while I brought Kasuf back..." Shaking his head, the officer leaned against the doorframe and indicated the old man and the candles. "What've you guys been up to? Hey, didn't Daniel leave him with Carter?"

"Major Carter found herself...distracted..."

One corner of O'Neill's mouth tugged upwards. "Damn. Wish I'd been there to see the fireworks then!"

The Returned One had been listening to them talk, still dribbling the wax over the table surface. "_That one is full of words. What does he say?_"

Teal'c didn't allow his amusement to show on his face. "_We are called to discuss what shall be done with you._"

"_I shall be returned to my people, then?_" _San y'kel_ glanced up and saw the truth in Teal'c's eyes. "_It is well. I have been gone too long from my grandchildren. The little one will be nearly a woman grown by now._"

"What's he saying?"

The old man's head swung to regard O'Neill, before turning back to Teal'c, "_He talks much, yet in talking, hides his true nature_."

"_It is his way_," Teal'c responded and the old man grinned.

O'Neill was standing at the door with both his eyebrows raised in query at their conversation, incomprehensible to him. "That reminds me, Teal'c," he asked. "What is a _yagesh_ with no _temma_?"

"In what context was it used?"

"The old guy said I was like one – whatever it is."

Teal'c forced his face to impassivity in spite of the urge to smile. _San y'kel_ had indeed chosen an apt description for O'Neill. "It does not translate."

**----**

As the Stargate dialled Abydos up for the second time that day, Major General George Hammond tried to ignore the twinges of foreboding he was having regarding this trip.

There was no reason for his uneasiness at all. Abydos was a known world, Kasuf was perfectly safe and the old man SG-1 had brought back with them from P9U-772 had done nothing even vaguely suspicious during his time on the base. He was, as Colonel O'Neill said forthrightly, nothing more than a crazy old guy.

Yet George Hammond was on edge. Something was wrong, he knew that as surely as he knew this command. He simply couldn't pinpoint it.

Down in the gateroom, the six travellers waited and even as the General watched, Jack turned around and looked up at the control room window. The expression on the Colonel's face clearly said that the other man felt the same apprehension, but, similarly, had nothing concrete upon which to act.

"Chevron six encoded," called the technician, his dark fingers moving smoothly across the keyboard as he pulled up the diagnostics for the Stargate.

"All normal, Sergeant?"

"Yes, sir." The affirmative eased a little of George's discomfort – but not enough to reassure him. "Chevron seven...locked."

Particles billowed out and settled to the shimmering surface of the event horizon. George leaned forward to speak into the PA system, "SG-1, you have a go for Abydos."

They had a go for Abydos, but in the gateroom, the old man had placed his hands either side of Colonel O'Neill's face and was saying something which brought an open grin to Dr. Jackson's face and caused Teal'c's eyebrow to rise and his mouth to twitch ever so slightly.

"SG-1, is there a problem?"

His voice over the system caused the Colonel to step back from the old man hastily, as if only just realising their positions. "No, sir. No problem."

Jack gestured Kasuf and the old man up the ramp to the Stargate and with a slight smile on his face, Kasuf prompted the Returned One up the ramp and through the wormhole. One by one the members of SG-1 followed them. Last of them all was the Colonel, who turned at the top of the ramp to give his CO a jaunty little salute before stepping through the event horizon to Abydos.

"Tracking to destination..." The Sergeant called. It wasn't SOP to track travellers through the wormhole to the destination, but Hammond always found it comforting to know his people had reached their destination safely. "Uh-oh..."

That kind of reaction was never good in the SGC.

"Sergeant?"

"The wormhole hasn't gone to Abydos, sir..."

Hammond watched as the wormhole disconnected from the Stargate and the last flashes of energy dissipated into nothingness.

"What?" The General looked from the computer to the idle Stargate. "Where has it gone? How did it...?"

"I don't know, sir." The technician called up a different screen and began typing commands into the system. "Sir, the last address dialled is coming up as Abydos," he glanced up at the wormhole tracker. "But that's not Abydos."

On the starmap indicating the galaxy, the double-circle indicating the final destination of the travellers who'd gone through the wormhole rested a long way from the nearby point which was known as Abydos.

"So where are they?" Hammond asked softly.

**End of Part Three**


	4. Chapter Four

**Forged Steel**

**Part Four**

Daniel stared at the planet before him.

It was most definitely not Abydos.

Instead of the sandstone blocks of the temple interior, gently illuminated by the reflection of the blinding sun on the desert sands, the scene before them was a rocky waste. Like the Giant's Causeway in Ireland, black basalt steppes stretched out before them for miles upon miles and scrubby hills were visible in the distance.

Behind him, the event horizon _glopped_ as his team-mates emerged and stared at the unfamiliar landscape.

"What the hell...?" Jack exclaimed, "Carter?"

"Sir, I have no idea."

"O'Neill, where are Kasuf and _San y'kel_?"

Daniel spun on his heel, turning three hundred and sixty degrees.

There was no sign of either his father-in-law, or the Returned One.

Only SG-1 and the Stargate.

"Carter?"

Sam's voice had a thread of uncertainty in her voice as she pulled out one of her instruments. "I don't know, sir. The co-ordinates were Abydos – and even if they weren't, Kasuf and the old man should be with us..."

"Is there any chance they were...lost, en-route?" Daniel voiced the concern. "Or sent to a different gate?"

Adjusting dials on the meter, Sam bit her lip. "If there was a power surge as we stepped into the gate, then they might have ended up on Abydos, while we ended up..." she glanced around, "...here."

"Which is...where?" Jack had that expression on his face where he knew he was shouting into the wind for answers but was going to ask anyway.

"I don't know..." Sam's voice trailed off as a light shone down and the transporter rings materialised around them.

When the light faded, they already had their weapons upright and ready for action. But a quick glance around them confirmed that the wall of the room was lined with more Jaffa than they could take out with two P-90s, a Beretta semi-automatic handgun and a staff-weapon.

A quick glance also showed the face of the Goa'uld who held them.

Zipacna.

"Lay down your weapons," grinned the Goa'uld, "Or your friends will die."

He waved a hand at the door and three prisoners were dragged in.

Three familiar prisoners.

"Father!" Rya'c cried from where the Jaffa held him in a firm grip.

Teal'c took one step forward, then stopped as another Jaffa prepped the zat gun aimed at the spine of his son. "You have tainted your son, _shol'va_," he spat, "And doomed his life."

Sam didn't cry out as Rya'c had, but her knuckles were white against the black metal of her P-90 as she looked towards her father. In return, Jacob looked back at his daughter with love, regret and an acceptance of his fate which terrified Daniel. What Selmak and Jacob had seen during their time in captivity had been enough to douse the spark of hope in both. There would be no easy way out of this place.

But Daniel's breath caught as the third captive stumbled to her knees, spitting blood as her breath echoed in her throat.

"Daniel?" There was a husky tone to her voice, but none of the sonorous echo indicating Goa'uld possession. "Daniel!" The man behind her took a fistful of gold curls and yanked Sarah Gardiner's head up so she could see the four standing in the centre of the room.

"This host was useful in getting me off Earth," said the man holding Sarah's hair, the Goa'uld overtones chiming unpleasantly in their ears. "Her usefulness has ended: she lacks the qualities I require in my host." The Goa'uld smiled, an unpleasant sneer on the human face. "We are learning, you see. As Anubis has shown us, it is possible even for the Goa'uld to change their spots..."

Daniel suddenly remembered that Sarah had always been fond of Kipling.

"Place your weapons at your feet," Zipacna instructed them and Jack nodded once in confirmation to his team, his mouth set in a line of bitter defeat as he and the others did so. "I am pleased indeed to see you."

"Pity I can't say the same," Jack replied shortly.

"Ah, yes... The infamous O'Neill humour." The Goa'uld spoke lazily, as if there were no urgency to the situation. "We shall find it most entertaining, I am sure..." He signalled to the Jaffa.

"We aim to please," came the sour reply a moment before zat'nik'atel blasts hit the four travellers one by one.

Daniel felt the tendrils of electricity lock his muscles, sending spasms through his body as it interfered with his nervous system. Then he slipped into blessed unconsciousness.

He was slapped out of insensibility by a slim hand pummelling him with determined intensity. The touch of those fingers was familiar. They'd once been beloved. "Daniel! Daniel, wake up!"

His vision returned slowly, "Sarah..." Then comprehension took hold of him and shook him hard. "Sarah!" Sitting up so fast he nearly knocked heads with her, Daniel found himself looking into her eyes.

Lucent blue eyes stared back at him, watching his reaction hesitantly. "Daniel? It's me...Sarah..." She waited as he studied her face, looking for signs of the Goa'uld possessing her, although he knew from first-hand experience how expertly the Goa'uld could deceive. He'd never even guessed Sarah was a Goa'uld until the moment he'd seen her in the pyramid. Then the pieces of the puzzle had fallen into place and Daniel had realised how much he'd revealed – and who he'd revealed it to.

There was no way for him to tell – not like Sam or Teal'c who would sense the presence of the Goa'uld. He'd have to make do with trust. "Sarah," he touched her cheek. "What happened?"

"They shot you with the...the zat'nik'atel ..." She stumbled over the word, both familiar and unfamiliar with the terminology. "You and your friends..." Her hand reached for his, seeking contact and comfort as she broke down, "Daniel, I...I have these memories...I did...horrible things."

"It wasn't you." He let his fingers close around hers, closed his arms around her, trying to give her the comfort she needed. Goa'uld host or not, the woman that was Sarah needed the reassurance that while Daniel hated the creature which had reduced her to this – reminding him so poignantly of Sha'ure's three year imprisonment – he didn't hate _her_. "It wasn't you doing that, Sarah, it was the Goa'uld. Osiris did those things..."

"Using my body," she said, huskily. "Using _me_."

He captured both her hands in his and tipped her face up to look at him. "Listen to me, Sarah," he told her, letting his gaze flicker over the delicacy of her features, "When a Goa'uld takes your body it feels like you performing those actions but it's not. It's not you doing those things." He'd spent some time on Tollana with Ska'ara before his brother-by-law had gone with the Tok'ra to tell them what he could of Apophis and the Goa'uld. Ska'ara had also been feeling the weight of Klorel's actions and it had taken long talks by everyone from Daniel to Teal'c to get Ska'ara to understand that his friends didn't hold him responsible for Klorel's actions. "I know you, remember? You'd never do what Osiris did – and _it_ was not _you_..." He watched her face as the crystal eyes searched him for much-needed belief. "Trust me, Sarah. I know."

And Daniel did know. He had witnessed not only Ska'ara's struggle to accept what Klorel had done through him, but also Sha'ure's grief at what Ammonet had done in her. She had shared her grief and shame with him during their brief reunion on Abydos before Shifu was born and through the message she had sent him through the ribbon device – the voice he still sometimes heard in his dreams: _Hear me, my Dan'yel._

Daniel had never been possessed by a Goa'uld, but he'd seen how the host was helpless to stop the creature. They could influence the Goa'uld as Kendra had influenced her Goa'uld to go to Cimmeria and Sha'ure had blinded Ammonet to Daniel and the others on Abydos, but not control or stop the actions. What the creature chose to do it did.

Sarah looked as if she would have liked to believe it, but the doubt remained in her expression as she began, "Daniel..."

A grinding sound interrupted her and their heads turned to the opening door of their cell.

Daniel hadn't yet glanced at the cell they'd been put in. Now he did. Nine feet by nine feet it was one of several in a row, separated by thin silvery bars, but the cells on each side were empty. There was no sign of his team, Jacob, or Rya'c.

He wondered where they were. He hoped they were okay. He trusted that they were trying to find a way out of the clutches of the Goa'uld.

And he didn't know what to make of the situation.

They'd stepped into the wormhole bound for Abydos, only to find themselves on a strange planet. Two of their number had disappeared in transit while SG-1 found themselves captured by Anubis' forces.

A moment later the new host of Osiris walked in and situational analysis became secondary to other concerns. Such as exactly what the Goa'uld wanted from them. He stifled a bitter laugh. What _didn't_ the Goa'uld want from them? Sarah shifted closer to him, her slim form shivering a little as two Jaffa followed the Goa'uld in. One grabbed Daniel while the other grabbed Sarah. Both humans tried to fight, Daniel with a little more success than Sarah; but even as he struggled, he knew his attempts to be futile. Overpowered and brutally handled, they were dragged into another room where manacles hung down from the walls and one pair dangled from the ceiling.

He was chained to the wall as Sarah was chained to the ceiling. Osiris lifted the metal rod in one hand and the trident end of the pain stick gleamed in the dim light sending cold chills down his spine.

Daniel knew exactly what came next.

He wasn't disappointed.

Sarah screamed as the pain stick was pressed against her abdomen, a shriek of agony that tore through Daniel like claws in his gut.

"Stop it!" The cry was helpless and hopeless and Daniel knew it.

But Osiris jerked the pain stick back and the hoarse sound of Sarah's breathing echoed in the silence. "It fascinates us how you will endure much for your own sake – and yet will endure even more for the sake of others." Again, the instrument was jabbed at Sarah; again, she screamed in pain. "For your own sake you would withhold the information we desire of you." He continued talking over his victim's cries. "Will you hold back the information when it is her life which hangs in the balance?"

Daniel swallowed with a mouth that was suddenly dry.

Would he?

**----**

_Rya'c is here._

The thought brought Teal'c to full consciousness in a moment and he scanned the room into which he'd been thrown. Cold metal floor, long thin bars spaced closely together, an opaque door and over in the corner...

He clambered over to his son's prostrate body with more speed than elegance and checked Rya'c's pulse. Just as his senses registered the pulse of blood steady and strong, his hand was flung away as the boy scrambled to his feet and spun to face the person he thought was attacking him.

"Rya'c!" Teal'c watched the fluid movements of his son, the lankiness of arm and leg and knew his child was nearly a man.

With his back in the corner, legs braced to defend himself if the need arose, Rya'c blinked once. "Father?" He took one incredulous look, then propelled himself out of the corner and into his father's arms. The Jaffa boy might have been growing into a man, but he still had a some of a child's need for protection and reassurance. "They came from the sky, Father. They killed Bra'tac. I ran for the Chappa'ai to call for help, but they caught me..." The husky voice cracked a little, "I think Mother and the others..."

Teal'c let his son's hands grip his fatigue jacket and felt the angry and frustrated tears of his son seep into his shirt. Within him a growing rage smouldered as he thought of the Land of Light and its people slaughtered or enslaved by the Goa'uld. All to gain one boy whose value was solely in the man who would do anything to keep him safe.

"How long have you been in the hands of the Goa'uld, Rya'c?"

The boy lifted his head from his father's chest, "I do not know, Father. At least several days. When I realised who held me, I have learned all I can about them." He faltered, uncertain of the usefulness of his information. "It is not much."

In spite of the dire nature of their situation, Teal'c felt his heart warm a little. Indeed his son was growing to become a mighty warrior – a son to be proud of. Fate willing, Rya'c would indeed grow to become a mighty Jaffa warrior who fought for the freedom of his people.

Fate willing.

"You have done well, Rya'c." Teal'c looked around the cell. "You have done more than a father could hope or expect of his son." Rya'c straightened with the pride in his father's voice and Teal'c let him go. "We shall find a way out of this place. I swear it."

Even as he spoke, the doors opened and five Jaffa entered, one in the lead while the others flanked him. "_Shol'va_!" The leader spat, meeting Teal'c's eyes. "You have betrayed your god and led others to apostasy. Corrupted the young and the innocent..."

"It is not I who am corrupted by what I do!" Teal'c responded, fiercely. "What kind of god requires you to do such things that bring no honour to a man? Teaching my son to believe as I do is no corruption. To kill innocents in the name of a creature who is no god but merely a parasite..." He heard the sickening crackle of zat-fire as it coruscated around him, _into_ him, paralysing his limbs and numbing his mind.

"Father!" Rya'c knelt beside Teal'c and glared at the Jaffa leader. A younger boy might have tried to attack the stronger man, but it was with relief that Teal'c saw his son knew to wait for the opportunity to strike.

"You speak blasphemy, _shol'va_," the lead Jaffa snarled.

Unable to move, Teal'c watched as Rya'c turned to regard the Jaffa with hatred in his eyes, "My father speaks the truth! The Goa'uld have no power without us! They are weak and puny things..."

Teal'c saw the butt end of a staff weapon descending towards his son and lunged for it, ignoring the agony of his muscles in an attempt to intercept it before it cracked his son's head. Grabbing the end of the weapon, his momentum yanked the staff weapon from his hand and as he slid along the floor he twisted, activating it and aiming it at the Jaffa in the doorway.

The leader and the three remaining Jaffa had their weapons pointed at him.

"You could not kill us all before we killed you, s_hol'va_," sneered the Jaffa leader. Rya'c took one step forward, in preparation for launching himself at the first of the guards, but the zat swivelled to aim at him. "Do not think to fight, child." The appellation was contemptuous. "We could kill you where you stand – and we shall unless your father lays down the weapon and passes it across the floor." The square-jawed face tilted and there was mockery in his expression. "What shall it be, _shol'va_?"

There was a moment when Teal'c contemplated shooting the leader anyway, before his instincts kicked in and he shut down the weapon and shoved it towards the guards. He would not do anything to endanger his son. Cautiously, the guard picked up his weapon and pointed it at Teal'c and the leader of the Jaffa continued.

"Teal'c, son of _shol'va_ Ronac who failed his god, you have been apostate for six years and your rebellion has drawn others into blasphemy and apostasy. We give you this opportunity to repent and return to the service of the gods – with your son as witness as you recant."

With a snort, Teal'c recalled another time and place when he'd been told to recant his 'apostasy' and hadn't. "The Goa'uld torturer Terok once thought as you do. He thought I valued my life over my beliefs – and he learned otherwise, as you well know." The recording of that torture-session had been grabbed by Rak'nor as he rescued Teal'c from Heru'ur's ship. Placed in the hands of Jaffa who also believed in freedom it had been a powerful tool. Teal'c the _shol'va_ believed so strongly in the freedom of his people that he allowed himself to be tortured to the point of death – and the power of his belief touched the heart of one of his jailers. The recording had been shown to many Jaffa, had swayed many who would otherwise have been indifferent to the hope of freedom.

But Teal'c watched as the leader grinned maliciously. "Yes, Terok indeed learned otherwise." He spoke with a leisurely amusement. "There are many things a man will take upon himself, _shol'va_, which he will not allow others to bear." The muzzles of the weapons pointed at Teal'c shifted their focus.

Teal'c froze.

"Your son is but a child, _shol'va_. The seed of your loins. Will you condemn not only yourself, but him also?"

There was no doubt in Teal'c's mind that these warriors would kill his son to reach him. The legends of Anubis and his followers, even before the Goa'uld's exile, were of a frightening viciousness and a pleasure in the destruction and pain of others.

His eyes travelled from the mocking expression of the Jaffa leader to the steady, earnest gaze of his son. Rya'c believed his father could do anything – he had seen nothing to indicate otherwise. Although Teal'c had been hunted by the System Lords and their followers for many years, still he came to see Rya'c when his time permitted. He had been careful to make sure Rya'c understood the cause for which Teal'c was fighting – the freedom of their people. Sometimes personal sacrifices had to be made in the name of your cause and Teal'c had never let Rya'c doubt how much his father loved him.

But what price freedom?

Teal'c fought for freedom for himself and his people. Included in that was his son – his son whom he had tried to stop being implanted with a Goa'uld larvae, that Rya'c might be completely free of the taint of the Goa'uld. He had failed in that.

Others had succeeded.

During his time on Kel Mar with the Jaffa rebellion, Teal'c had been approached by several warriors who spoke to him about their children: daughters picked to be priestesses, sons accepted to become Jaffa warriors. Once it had been a great honour for a child to receive a primta – but many among the Jaffa now thought otherwise. Some had fought their wives and families to avoid their children being taken by the priests, some had killed the priests themselves, earning them the title of _shol'va_. They, too, believed in the freedom of the Jaffa people so powerfully that they wished their children to live without the influence of the Goa'uld.

"So, _shol'va_? What will it be?"

What parent would not wish their child to live? To see them survive and grow, laugh and run and play; to live with honour and passion?

But Teal'c could not renounce his belief in the freedom of his people. The Goa'uld were not gods and never had been. They had enslaved his people for thousands of years, inflicted their rule on hundreds of worlds, slaughtered innocents in the name of their self-worship and destroyed cultures which could have challenged their rule but which they could not dominate.

Teal'c could not give up his beliefs. Not even for his son. What kind of a life could he promise his son in slavery? The hope that he would become the First Prime of a god whose whim could have you killed in a moment of anger? The knowledge that he would be forced to shed blood for the glory of his master – and that no failure would be brooked? The guilt and frustration of serving a master who cared nothing for the foot soldiers that built him his empire?

If he took back his words, what would happen to his people? What would happen to the warriors whom he had stood beside on Kel Mar? What would become of the men he had given a cause worth fighting for – a dream of freedom instead of the fear of a god's punishment for failure?

_Symbols are powerful things, buddy_. O'Neill had told him on the way home from the incident on Heru'ur's ship with Rak'nor. _You've become a symbol to both the Jaffa serving the Goa'uld and the guys who want to be free. One group see you as the enemy of everything they stand for – and the fanatics will do anything to take you out – preferably with your signed confession that you were wrong._ O'Neill had waved a hand at the recording device that Major Carter was studying with Daniel Jackson. _Which I guess was what that was all about. The others see you and figure that if a big guy like you can doubt and rebel then it must be okay. Under the snake-head you had the best a Jaffa can have and you still thought that freedom was better. That says a lot._

"I love my son," Teal'c said quietly, tearing his eyes from Rya'c's frightened but steady gaze. "But my son loves freedom – as do I. I choose freedom." He lifted his chin, "_We_ choose freedom."

He knew what he was pronouncing – a death knell on both himself and his son. But more hinged on this than just their lives: the lives and freedom of so many other warriors, the fight for the freedom of the Jaffa people.

The lip of the Jaffa leader curled and he shot Rya'c once with the zat making the adolescent crumple to the floor. "So it shall be, _shol'va_." Teal'c launched himself at the leader, but the second shot of zat-fire struck Rya'c square in the chest and the boy's struggles ceased as Teal'c slammed the body of the warrior on the floor. An ominous cracking sound indicated that bone had been broken and the abruptly vacant stare of the leader indicated the bone had been important

The zat clattered across the floor and one of the Jaffa lunged for it, but the long staff weapon hindered him and Teal'c had no difficulty in breaking his jaw with a well-aimed blow. The zat he thus gripped was swiftly aimed and shot at the two remaining Jaffa. One went down immediately, while the other got a shot off at him, but Teal'c had rolled and the blast missed him by mere inches, the cold floor made colder by the brief glimpse of his son's limp body a few feet away. The second blast took out the last guard and with fierce fury, Teal'c pumped a second shot into both of them, then dropped to his knees beside Rya'c.

No pulse. No breath. No flutter of the eyelids or twitch of the cheek.

Rya'c was dead.

Grief flooded through him, snapping every nerve to maximum sensitivity, stinging his eyes and constricting his chest. His son was dead.

Memories flooded him, a poignant ache. The large-eyed infant Teal'c had held in his arms, trembling when the midwife presented his son to him mere moments after birth. The toddler who had squealed as his father threw him up in the air, and demanded, "More play!" The boy who had demanded a bedtime story from the parent usually absent – the tale of Fareki and the _mivvkas_. The young man who had faced his father the last time Teal'c went to visit him in the Land of Light, proud and determined to show his father that he was a son worthy of his father and a warrior worthy of freedom.

Ah yes, Teal'c understood O'Neill's grief now. The years might sand back the sharp edges of grief and guilt, but the loss would always be refracted through a lens of pain. It would ease with the passing of time, but it would never fully go – the faintest of pangs at the heart when the thoughts turned to the dead child.

Aware that there was more here at stake, even in his son's death, Teal'c glanced at the still-open door. He knew he had to leave here and find his friends before he was recaptured. His heart was heavy in his breast, but he could do nothing for Rya'c. Although there might be a sarcophagus on the ship somewhere – Teal'c presumed they were on a ship – it would be heavily guarded. Anubis might be a Goa'uld, but he was a dangerous one – more so than all the System Lords combined.

Pressing a kiss to his son's forehead and saluting the child for the warrior he'd never become, Teal'c went to pick up the zat. As he did so, he realised that Apophis had somehow revived him – turned him against his friends. If Apophis could do such a thing was it unreasonable to think that Anubis could do that to Rya'c?

There was a solution, much as he hated to do it. Taking the zat, he aimed it at Rya'c's body, then fired once, twice, three times.

The slim body vanished and Teal'c stood watching the spot where his son had lain with a leaden weight in his chest. He would feel the full extent of his guilt later, he knew. But the man that Rya'c would have grown into would have understood the choice his father had made. Freedom for all the Jaffa – whatever the cost.

Teal'c would have to trust in that.

Turning on his heel, ignoring the grief which threatened to choke him, Teal'c coolly dematerialised the bodies of Anubis' dead Jaffa and began the search for his friends.

----

"Wake up, Jack!"

He nearly broke the wrist of the hand slapping him awake.

That was before he realised the hand doing the slapping and the voice doing the yelling were familiar

Jack blinked once, trying to work out when Carter's Dad had arrived here. Then he remembered where _here_ was.

_Damn._

He sat up and groaned as his muscles reminded him that sleeping on a cold floor was never a good idea after being hit by zat-fire. Then, too, being hit by zat-fire was never a good idea either.

"Nice to have you back with us, Colonel," Jacob said dryly. "I was worried I'd have to carry you out over my shoulder."

Jack squinted at the Tok'ra, his vision still not one-hundred percent. "There's a way out of here?" Given that he'd seen a lot of Jaffa before they shot him, he doubted they'd found themselves right next to a Stargate all ready to get home.

"Sam's looking into it."

"Carter?"

"Sir?"

"Found anything?"

"Not yet." He heard footsteps coming back towards him, "Looks like a standard prison cell on a Goa'uld ship."

Jack gripped his skull as the mother of all headaches struck him. "Damn, I'm getting too old for this."

Jacob sat back on his heels, amused, "Remember who you're talking to, Jack."

"Hey, I don't have a snake in the head, Jacob! No offence to Selmak, of course." Personally, Jack couldn't think of anything worse than having a symbiote – someone else in your head, seeing your thoughts. He'd come _that_ close to it after the thing on Hathor's ship and he never wanted to feel anything like it again. "Where's Daniel and Teal'c?"

"We don't know sir," Carter crouched down beside him, using her fingertips to steady herself. "There were three hostages – Sarah Gardiner – I think they took the Goa'uld out of her…"

"They did," Jacob said.

"…Rya'c and Dad. One for Daniel, one for Teal'c and one for me. Since I'm in here with Dad, it makes sense to assume Daniel's with Sarah and Teal'c's with Rya'c."

"Why don't they have anyone for me?" Jack demanded, just talking in an attempt to work out what levels he could speak at without his brain resonating painfully inside his skull.

"They do," Jacob said bluntly. "They have three of them."

Jack caught Carter's eye and his mouth twisted a little in wry and bitter acknowledgement. The older man had hit the nail on the head. There was no-one in the galaxy Jack cared about as much as his team.

Looking back at the 'retired' General, Jack noted the faint fading bruises on Jacob's cheek. "How long have they had you, Jacob?"

Carter seemed calm enough, which meant that she'd probably already done the catch-up with her Dad while Jack was still out of it.

"A week." The Tok'ra grimaced. "They haven't done much – I've had worse in cadet training. Selmak's a life-saver." The grimace turned into a wry smile of affection for his symbiote.

Jack shook his head. _Not in a million years_. "So what options do we have?"

Father and daughter looked at each other, then Jacob's head dropped and when it rose again, Selmak spoke. "It is a considerable coup for Zipacna and Osiris. The System Lords have been hunting me for many thousands of years and then to gain the infamous SG-1…"

"Guess they don't accept bail," Jack quipped and watched Carter's mouth twitch.

Suddenly, Selmak lifted one hand. "Someone comes."

A moment later, the faint clank of armoured footsteps could be heard and all three scrambled to their feet. Jack quickly went to stand beside the door of the cell, ready to take on the intruders. Jacob took the other side of the doorway – although whether it was Jacob or Selmak presently in control, Jack had no way of telling. Frankly, he didn't care. He'd never been fond of the Tok'ra, although for Jacob he'd make an exception – but an ally was an ally.

The door rose into the ceiling, but as the person entered, Jack felt the unwelcome frisson of zat-fire coruscate through his body. Collapsing against the wall, he saw Jacob hauled up by one of the burly Jaffa following Zipacna into the room. A moment later, he, too, was hauled up before being flung facedown on the floor.

Carter took a step forward towards them – and rebounded back. The electric blue shimmer of a force-field crackled between her and both her captors and the men they held prisoner.

_Crap._

"Major Carter…" Zipacna ignored the two prostrate men before him, smiling broadly. "I offer you an exchange of prisoners."

"Sam, don't!"

"If you will agree to serve the Goa'uld freely, giving up your knowledge both as Samantha Carter and Jolinar of Malkshur, we will release your friends and the people we hold as hostage." Although Jack couldn't see the Goa'uld's expression, he could see the uncertainty flicker across his team-mate's face.

"Carter…" Now was _not_ the time for heroic sacrifices!

For what seemed like ages, she didn't say a thing. Behind Jack, the Jaffa shifted restlessly, but Carter remained silent, her mind ticking over the implications of the offer.

She wouldn't accept it. Carter had more brains than that. Hell, she had more brains than just about anyone Jack had ever met – well, maybe with the exception of Daniel.

But the silence was making him nervous.

_Don't take it, Carter. Don't accept. They'll just screw you over. You know exactly what the Goa'uld are and how they think…_ Carter was a smart cookie, she knew that.

But for her team…

Jack knew how far he'd go for his team, he just hoped Carter wouldn't go as far.

"How do I know you'll really let them go?"

"You have my word."

"The word of a Goa'uld?" Jack could actually hear Carter's raised eyebrows in her tone of voice.

"Yes."

"What's to stop you from making me a host and getting my knowledge that way?" She sounded more belligerent than she usually was when speaking to Jack – not that he had a problem with that.

Zipacna's smile was audible in his voice. "Because we know our own kind, Major Carter. Any Goa'uld with your knowledge would be a dangerously ambitious ally. It would be less difficult for my master to acquire your knowledge through you than another Goa'uld."

"I see." Another thoughtful pause followed, before she spoke with a steely determination in her voice. "I would never allow myself to make that kind of bargain." Jack felt like cheering in spite of what her decision meant. _You go, Major!_ "And you would never keep your end of it."

_That_ was the woman he commanded! Cool, competent and ballsy as any man he'd known.

The silence behind Jack had a slightly astonished quality, as if Carter's change of heart had surprised Zipacna. Perhaps it had.

"Very well, Major Carter. Your choice. Your loss."

And with that Zipacna gave a quick signal to one of the Jaffa who fired two shots into Jacob.

The Tok'ra jerked once and the eyes glowed gold before fading into unseeing dark irises. Jack cried out in protest at the same time as Carter lunged forward – straight into the force field. She bounced back, falling to the floor and cursing softly as she landed. He glimpsed the tears in her eyes a moment before the Jaffa holding him ground his heel into his kidneys, sending his midriff into an explosion of pain.

Then Zipacna turned on his heel and the door hissed shut behind him, leaving the two officers with the dead Tok'ra.

**End of Part Four**


	5. Chapter Five

**Forged Steel**

**Part Five**

It was like some kind of a nightmare from which she couldn't wake up. But the cold chill of the restraints they'd fitted on them was real, as were the staff weapons which prodded her along the corridor. "You okay?" The Colonel asked her softly.

She wasn't. She felt like screaming it at him. How could a person be okay when they'd just had their father killed before them? And the choice had been left to her. She could have stopped it. Could have saved him…

She knew perfectly well the Goa'uld would never have kept the bargain. It didn't make the horror of her choice any different. It didn't end the pain in her chest when she looked at her father's limp body, the indefinable _something_ gone which had made him Jacob Carter, USAF Major General, father to Mark and Samantha, husband to the late Leah Carter, host to Selmak of the Tok'ra.

However you wanted to put it, Sam could have stopped it from happening.

_Coulda, woulda, shoulda…doesn't make much difference now, does it?_ The little voice pointed out with inexorable certainty. _Your responsibility now, Samantha, as a soldier, is to get out of here alive and make sure that he didn't die for nothing! You can grieve for him later – right now, you need to stay alive for his sake, for yours and for your team's sake._

Her team…

She glanced at the Colonel, who was still looking at her intently. "I'm sorry, Carter."

"No talking," growled the Jaffa, prodding him ungently in the kidneys. "Walk!"

She flashed her CO a forced smile to show she was still with him and kept walking.

Where were Daniel and Teal'c, she wondered? Had they been made similar offers – knowledge for the freedom of their team? Had they accepted where she had refused? Had her father's death been for nothing?

They were marched into a room, small and cramped, with two figures already held under guard.

"Jack! Sam!" Daniel got a fist in the belly for his pains and doubled over, gagging, while a Jaffa held a pain-stick just before Teal'c's belly, forcing him back away from his team-mate.

Teal'c growled, an animal sound in his throat and when he looked at his team-mates, Sam felt her heart contract. Whatever they had offered Teal'c, he had refused and Rya'c had suffered for it. Given how they'd executed her father, they'd probably killed the young Jaffa.

And Sarah? She looked to Daniel, who was straightening up, his breathing constricted by the bruised muscles of his diaphragm. They'd taken his glasses from him and his eyes were red and slightly swollen from grief.

"Good to see you guys again," the Colonel said, his voice light, but the undertones tense. "Sorry to keep you waiting."

The almost-joking tone of his voice might have offended them, had they not been so well-versed in heir commanding officer's foibles.

"Tau'ri." They turned as one to face Zipacna, standing tall and straight, defiant in their stance. "We give you a choice – a second choice, as you refused the first." He looked from Daniel, to Teal'c, to the Colonel, to Sam. "Serve Anubis. Serve him loyally and faithfully and your lives will be spared, or watch each other die."

There was silence. Then the Colonel spoke. "Zippy, why don't you take your offer and go screw yourself with it?" The words were hard and cold. There were no jokes now, no amusement in his voice. "And while you're at it, screw Anubis with it, too."

One eyebrow rose, the smirking face taken aback by the unequivocal reply. "And do you speak for your friends, Colonel O'Neill?"

The Goa'uld looked from face to face and must have seen their answer in their eyes. "Very well." The heavy lip curled and a harshness came over his face.

He lunged and thrust his fist into Teal'c's pouch. There was a sickening squelch as the muscles of his arm flexed and then Teal'c was on his knees curled over his belly in pain. The dark jaw gritted down hard, the muscles of the neck rising rigidly from the neck of his t-shirt.

Frozen where she stood, Sam felt her stomach lurch, nauseatingly. In such a way had Cronos executed Teal'c's father for failing him. In such a way had Sho'nak died.

"Teal'c!" The Colonel lunged for Zipacna, uncaring of the Jaffa whose staff-weapons rose to swing at him. One caught him on the jaw with the sickening sound of metal on bone, throwing him off-balance. He crashed to the ground in an ungainly heap.

Jaffa leapt forward, dragging them up and into the next room, where they were each flung into the corner of a cell.

Sam skidded on her knees, the material of her fatigue pants burning her skin, her bound hands making it impossible for her to balance herself as she slammed into the wall. Her head rang painfully with the impact and she hauled herself unsteadily up and glanced around.

Daniel was on his knees groaning and the Colonel had been unceremoniously dumped in the back corner of the cell and was leaning heavily against the wall. And Teal'c…

Sam took two steps towards her convulsing team-mate, only to feel the crackle of energy that signalled another force-field. It divided the cell into four smaller cells with one member of the team in each sub-cell. Able to see their team-mates, but unable to do anything for them. They were going to be left to watch Teal'c die, just as Zipacna had promised. And then what? Who would be next?

Daniel came to stand beside her on the other side of the force-field, facing Teal'c. Looking at the redness of his eyes, Sam had to ask, "Sarah?"

"Dead. They wanted information from me. The homeworld for the Jaffa rebellion and the Tok'ra remnants. The co-ordinates for Lieutenant Tyler's world. Kheb…" The pain in his voice wrung her out. Daniel was tired of losing people he cared about. Another gasp from Teal'c turned their heads to their team-mate. "We can't do anything," Daniel said from the corner beside her. There was a weariness in his voice which ached in her. "When a symbiote's fluids mix with human blood…it's fatal."

"They'll have a sarcophagus around here somewhere…" The Colonel said, opening his eyes and staggering to his feet. "We just have to find it…"

"How?" Daniel had to gesture with his chin to indicate the prison.

"I don't know, Daniel!" The Colonel had an edge to his voice, "We'll find a way! Carter?"

Dammit, why did he always come to her for solutions? She had none she could think of – and watching Teal'c's struggles growing weaker, she knew she was running out of time. The only good thing about a sarcophagus was that it could bring people back from the dead – as long as they hadn't been dead too long. How long had her father been dead?

She refused to think about that. Her team needed her to look at ways out of this place. But, glancing over the cell, she realised there were none. No buttons, no panels – nothing she could do. The force-field was being generated somewhere else and simply being channelled here in the cells… She was helpless – as they all were.

Another grunt from Teal'c caught their attention and brought the Colonel to his feet.

"Dammit, Teal'c!" Colonel O'Neill bellowed, "Fight! Hang in there…"

In his corner, Teal'c choked something husky and unintelligible as his body went rigid then limp. His breath hissed from his lips and his chest didn't rise again.

They stared, the silence growing until…

"Oh God," Daniel muttered, brokenly. "Teal'c…"

Sam shuddered, grief rising in her and being choked down. Grief was a luxury for which she didn't have the time right now. Maybe when they got out of here… _If_ they got out of here…

The door hissed open behind them. They turned sharply to face Zipacna and Osiris.

"And so the _shol'va_ dies." Zipacna sneered and gestured to his companion. "You should have accepted the offer of our master, _Tau'ri._"

And with no more warning than that, Osiris lifted the ribbon device and a wave of power slammed Daniel backwards into the force shield behind him.

He struggled to his feet, coughing. Sam watched in horror as he spat blood, then jerked forward as Osiris walked into Daniel's section of the cell and raised the ribbon device to Daniel's head.

Sam had only experienced the power of a ribbon device once. The extremes of hot and cold; pain like a thousand white-hot needles were stabbing into your brain as the blood vessels in your head throbbed like they were going to explode. Your thoughts slowed down, every second of real time slowing to a minute. Teal'c had once explained that the ribbon device could ruffle through your thoughts to pick out your knowledge – although the Goa'uld preferred brute force to the kind of finesse that required.

"Daniel," she begged him, dropping to her knees beside him, trying to catch his eye. "Fight it! You're strong enough…" She didn't know if he could hear her, didn't know if he could respond – but pleading with him was all she could do. "Break the hold on you, Daniel. Please…" She didn't know how he would break free, or even what he'd do once he'd broken the contact, but he had to try… Tears were running down her face and grief burned painfully in her chest – first Teal'c, now Daniel…it wasn't supposed to end this way. Not like this!

"Daniel…" Behind her she could hear the Colonel's voice, a grim rasp.

And then the ribbon device snapped off.

He slid sideways toward Sam, but hit the force-field mere inches from her, falling heavily to the floor. Blue eyes stared ceilingwards; open, empty. Devoid of mischief, delight, exasperation, anger, pain, tiredness. Devoid of life.

Sam gasped, her breath catching in her throat and turned her head to look at the Colonel. Dark eyes met blue and there was a wealth of communication in his expression: unspoken promises, words unsaid, hopes never expressed, and confessions closed away. Then his eyes slid past her to the Goa'uld who remained in the doorway. There was the sound of a staff weapon priming behind her. Cold fear slithered down her spine. Climbing to her feet, shaking with exhaustion and emotion, she turned to the doorway, where a Jaffa aimed his staff weapon at her.

"Sir," she husked.

"Carter?"

"It was an honour…"

"Don't you dare give me that crap, Sam," he interrupted her, his voice harsh. She continued anyway.

"…to serve…"

In slow motion, the ball of energy emerged from the tip of the weapon. Distantly, Sam heard the sound of the discharge in her ears. There was a burning, searing agony in her chest, spreading through her abdomen…

Then darkness.

**----**

The rings deposited Jack on the surface of the planet.

Lush green grass flourished around him and insects chattered in incessant noise. Beyond the DHD and Stargate, a magnificent pine forest spread for miles, scenting the crisp air with a resinous aroma and climbing a snow-tipped mountain in the distance.

He'd never seen this place in his life.

He hoped to never see it again.

No quips, no jokes, no smart comments sprang to his lips. There was nobody to hear them.

There would never be anybody to hear them again.

He dropped the thing in his hands into the grass as he fell to his knees, shaking like a sapling in a gale-force wind.

Daniel, Carter and Teal'c were dead.

Teal'c's empty eyes had been fixed on Jack after the Jaffa had fallen still from his death throes. There was no accusation in his dead gaze, only a calm peace. Teal'c died free.

Daniel had stared into the face of the Goa'uld, unable to move his head as the rays of the ribbon device turned his brain into scrambled eggs. The pale eyes had looked steadfastly at his killer until the device shut off and Jack's team-mate crashed to the floor, unmoving.

Carter had slammed back into the force-shield before him, then bonelessly collapsed in the fulfilment of a nightmare which had haunted Jack for two years. He didn't need to look at her to know there was a smoking, bleeding hole in her chest – he'd seen death-by-staff-weapon many times before. He looked anyway, heart-wrenchingly blue eyes bereft of their usual light, wide open and glazed in death.

His gaze transferred from her to Daniel to Teal'c, and something in him died.

He'd barely noticed as the shields came down and the writhing electricity of a zat blast coursed through him.

The physical pain was nothing.

Not compared to the emptiness as he looked upon his team and their blank gazes met his.

Jaffa had dragged him to the rings, removing the bindings at his wrists and he'd sat there limply, without even the energy to understand what they were going to do with him now. He tried to summon anger, hatred, grief, the burning desire for revenge…and nothing came. Only the aching hollow left by the deaths of his team-mates.

Zipacna had come to stand before him, the heavy features once again set in their customary smug expression. "Enjoy your life, Jack O'Neill, such as you will live it." Then he had tossed Jack something small and black as the rings flew up around him and beamed him down to the surface of the planet.

Sitting in the grass, Jack's gaze was drawn to the thing Zipacna had thrown him. Only instincts honed after years of military service enabled him to catch it before it hit his chest.

It was a GDO.

Understanding hit him like a blow to the soul and he doubled over, gasping as if he'd been dealt a blow to the belly.

The Goa'uld wanted him to live. They wanted him to live with the memory of his team-mates' death. His failure to protect them. His inability to die with them.

_Enjoy your life, Jack O'Neill, such as you will live it._

Why? Why was he always the one to survive? Why did he emerge unscathed while the people he cared about lay cold and dead? Why couldn't the powers that be - the fates, whatever mocked him from the heavens - take him instead?

It tore at him, reopening old wounds. Memories of people who had died when Jack had lived. Memories of friends who never returned home from missions, of comrades who lived maimed while Jack remained whole, of a small white gravestone in a military cemetery and a child dead before he'd ever grown to be a man, of three friends whose bodies lay haphazardly in a cell on a Goa'uld ship.

He'd failed. Again.

It ached in him. A darkness welling up within him, flowing over him; sticky like blood, clinging to his soul, stifling hope. The wind was cold around him and his hands were freezing, but his heart was colder still.

Daniel had once told him the hardest thing about Sha'ure's death could be summed up in two words.

Never again.

No second chances, only regrets. No future, only past memories. No dreams, only painful reality.

No more explanations, dry comments, cups of coffee, or exasperated grumbles.

No more technobabble, brilliant smiles, Jell-O desserts, or intuitive support.

No more arched brows, calm statements, Jaffa jokes, or reliable solidity.

Never again.

Jack took a shuddering breath.

_Why don't they have anyone for me?_

_They do. They have three of them._

He wasn't sure he could bear it.

Before him arched the stone arc of the Stargate, arcane and alien. The way home.

Slowly, he got to his feet and staggered over to the DHD.

One by one he depressed the keys to light up the chevrons that would take him back to the SGC.

He rubbed the back of his hand across his sore eyes and was surprised to discover that his eyeballs ached because he was crying.

The Stargate _whooshed_ and Jack lifted the GDO…and hesitated.

It would be so easy.

So easy to walk up those stairs and into oblivion. Omit to send the iris code and end up as some molecular debris spread across the iris plates. Why should he have survived his team? Lived when they died?

But the weight of his responsibilities pressed down on him. He owed Hammond an explanation of what happened to his best people. He owed it to his team to let someone know how they died – how much they had sacrificed to keep their integrity. He owed it to his friends to see them honoured for everything they'd done – for the galaxy, for Earth and for him.

He owed them this.

So he sent the GDO code as he'd watched Carter or Daniel do so many times before and climbed the stairs with painful slowness, his bad knee a minor ache compared to the rent in his soul.

_You can actually see the fluctuations in the event horizon…_

One hand skimmed across the ripples of the wormhole entrance: tribute and homage to three friends with whom he laughed and gated and _lived_ six years of his life after trying to quietly retire. There'd still been fight in him then – but not anymore.

In a single sweep, the Goa'uld had taken his soul, heart and strength from him and Jack O'Neill felt old.

Older than he'd been on Argos. Older than Machello. Older than the dusty stuff Daniel had loved to study.

He was just one old, tired, worn-out soldier with no hope left. Only the duty he owed his people.

It was duty which propelled him into the open wormhole. Nothing more.

Never anything more.

**End of Part Five**


	6. Chapter Six

**Forged Steel**

**Part Six**

They staggered out of the Stargate like drunks out of a bar on a Saturday night and the wormhole shut down behind them.

Daniel was aware of the clatter of his boots on the ramp, but only when they hit solid cement did his stumbling gait cease. His knees gave way and he crashed to the floor. Someone collapsed next to him, her hand gripping his shoulder as she tried to slow her descent. Sam winced as she hit the floor, but apart from shifting slightly, she seemed okay – if a little shell-shocked.

Daniel knew exactly how she felt. His arm slung around her shoulder, both support and reassurance. She was warm, real; he could feel the faint quiver of tension under his arm. The glance she gave him was startled but grateful and she leaned ever so slightly into his side.

_We were held prisoner by Zipacna... I saw Sarah...and Rya'c...and Jacob..._

Jack spoke for them all as he sat down on legs that were distinctly unsteady. "What the hell just happened?" There was a note in the older man's voice that Daniel had never heard before. A harsh rasp that betrayed shock and fear.

Teal'c was leaning heavily on his staff weapon, alone of the four, he had managed to keep his feet – but only just. The expression on his face was no less shocked than those on the faces of his team-mates and the openness of expression was unusual to the Jaffa.

"Zipacna crushed my symbiote within me..." One large hand touched his belly cautiously. "I remember dying..." The big man shuddered.

_I remember dying, too..._ Daniel quivered with the memory of the ribbon device boring into his brain – familiar and hated.

"I think..." Jack paused and swallowed, then continued, his voice shaking a bit. "I think we all remember dying...except..."

"Medical team to the gateroom!" The voice blared through the speakers and they looked at each other, startled by the sudden noise.

"We're not dreaming again, are we?" Sam said, her eyes betraying her uncertainty. "We _are_ back in the SGC?"

"I believe we are." Teal'c dropped to his knees beside his team-mates. "Although I do not understand what has happened here..." His hand groped blindly for Jack's shoulder and as he gripped it, Jack's hand shot out and closed around the Jaffa's wrist.

"I'm not dreaming..." One hand raked through pepper-and-salt strands, "I'm not dreaming..." There was a dazed expression on Jack's face and he kept swallowing as if his mouth was dry.

"Sir?" Sam reached one hand out, then hesitated, but Jack caught her hand, his fingers winding into hers in a grip so fierce she winced.

"I had to..." Jack shuddered, "I watched you guys die...and then they sent me back down to a Stargate with my GDO..." He swallowed again, convulsively.

"Colonel O'Neill? SG-1?"

Their heads jerked up in unison and if Daniel hadn't been so shaken, it would have been funny.

"SG-1, where the hell have you been?"

Jack looked around at them all and as he met Daniel's gaze, Daniel shrugged. Jack looked back up at the control room and the personnel standing there staring down at them. "We...we have no idea, sir."

**----**

Janet watched her favourite SG team carefully as she followed them to the briefing room. They'd all come up clean in post-gate without a trace of anything in their blood work. The only thing they were high on was adrenaline and that was swiftly fading. As far as she could tell, they'd had a routine mission – except that she knew as well as any personnel on the base what had happened eight hours ago when they left. The wormhole intended for Abydos ended up somewhere else and SG-1 were missing – until an unscheduled wormhole had appeared and SG-1 had emerged from it, physically intact but emotionally shell-shocked.

After SG-1 had vanished, General Hammond dialled Abydos and found that only Kasuf arrived there, a little surprised to be the sole traveller from the gate. General Hammond had promised to keep him appraised of the situation.

Neither sight nor sound of the old man had been found, either on Abydos, or in the SGC.

SG-1 were more contact-oriented with each other than usual, she noted as they walked down the corridor. The Colonel – usually the most tactile of the four of them – was very physical with his team-mates. Teal'c and Daniel presented no trouble for him: the Colonel was taking every opportunity to pat or poke them, clap his hand on their shoulder or slap their hands away from something. Sam was a more problematic matter, but as he directed his team through the door, Janet saw his hand touch Sam's shoulder, guiding her into the room. She was pretty sure that he'd touched Sam in the small of her back as well, but the General walked out of the office and the Colonel dropped his hands.

More surprising than the physical tactility was the fact that his team had not yet protested the contact, indeed, as they seated themselves, they were reassuring themselves with the presence of each other in their own subtle ways. Sam and Daniel were leaning on the armrests closest to each other, their positions uncannily mirroring each other, a scant inch between their shoulders. Teal'c seemed self-contained physically, but his eyes lingered on his team-mates faces, while the Colonel now seemed almost shy, fiddling with his pen and the pad of yellow paper on the desk before him. Janet had the sudden urge to check under the table to see if he was playing footsie with anyone.

Whatever had happened to them in the eight hours since they'd gone through the wormhole, it had given them enough of a shock for them to require physical certainty of each other's presence. And whatever had happened, it had also invoked their concern about both Rya'c and Jacob. Requests had come from Sam and Teal'c for messages to be sent to the off-world members of their families and Daniel had tagged a request onto Sam's message to the Tok'ra regarding the Goa'uld Osiris – and presumably its host, Sarah Gardiner.

As she seated herself, Janet made a mental note to keep them all on base this evening. If they were going to go into post-traumatic shock she wanted them where they could receive instant medical attention.

"Colonel O'Neill, would you like to explain where you and your team have been for the last eight hours while we've been searching the galaxy for you?"

"Well, that's a bit of a problem, sir, since we don't actually know _where_ we've been..."

The General's eyebrows rose, "Colonel?" In the tone of his voice was an invitation – or maybe an order – to detail what had happened from the moment SG-1 stepped through the wormhole.

And the Colonel did so.

One by one his team detailed what had happened to them once they'd emerged from the Stargate at the other end of the wormhole. From capture to interrogation, from interrogation to the deaths of the people they loved, to their own deaths and the Colonel's final act.

Colonel O'Neill wasn't quite shaking as he described being transported down to the planet from which he had come, but his voice was very low and slightly husky. His eyes were fixed at an invisible point on the table as he spoke and his hands were turning a pen over and over in his fingers.

"...next thing I know, I'm back in the SGC and...and the gang's all here."

There were a few still seconds when General Hammond looked completely at a loss. His gaze locked briefly with Janet's in stunned amazement.

An airman ran up the stairs with a message for the General who glanced down at it and his expression eased a little. "Good news. We've received word back from the Land of Light, Teal'c. Rya'c, Drey'ac and Bra'tac are safe, and Tuplo and his family are well. As far as they know, the situation remains the same: no Goa'uld has come to the planet in generations."

"Have we heard from the Tok'ra yet?" That was the Colonel, glancing across at his 2IC and seeing the fear in her eyes.

"While you were in post-gate, Colonel. The Tok'ra reported that they had only just received a message from Jacob – he's located the last few Tok'ra and is headed back to base." General Hammond nodded at Sam, sitting to his right. "I extended an invitation for him to visit the SGC for a few days of downtime."

"Thank-you, sir," Sam said, her shoulders relaxing slightly.

"As for the Goa'uld Osiris..." General Hammond looked down the table to Dr. Jackson. "The Tok'ra reported that as of a week ago, Osiris was headed for a distant part of space – they're trying to determine what her purpose is there."

So everyone was safe and well...sort of.

Janet made a mental note to get them into at least a couple of sessions with Mackenzie. Sure, they all loathed 'headshrinking' – as the Colonel termed it – and particularly with McKenzie, but what they'd been through would leave scars on them as surely as if it had actually happened. To all intents and purposes, they _had_ experienced the torture, seen their loved ones die, felt themselves die...

She was surprised they were still sane.

"Has there been any sign of the Returned One?" Teal'c inquired.

"None. I sent SG-4 through to Abydos to search for the Returned One, they found no sign of him. We're did a sweep of the base with TERs in case he has the ability to become invisible – and still no sign. It's a matter of some concern since he's seen the workings of the SGC up close and then vanished..."

"General..." Daniel began.

"Daniel..." The Colonel interrupted warningly.

"He isn't a danger to us."

"And how do you know that, Daniel?"

"I just know!"

"And I 'just know' that he had something to do with what happened to us!" Reaching into the breast pocket of his shirt, Colonel O'Neill produced a small fold of paper. "I found this when I was emptying my pockets in the locker room – and I know I didn't have it in there before we left."

Janet craned her neck to glimpse the note. She saw the curlicued writing for a brief second before the Colonel passed it to General Hammond.

The General glanced over the sheet of paper Colonel O'Neill handed him and passed it to Sam who passed it to Daniel. "Dr. Jackson?"

Adjusting his glasses, Daniel peered at it, his eyebrows moving up and down as he blinked. "The style of the language is familiar...but not the language itself. I'll have to do some research to see if there's a comparable language..." He glanced up at the Colonel. "You're sure this came from _San y'kel_?"

"Daniel, I don't carry notes written in alien languages around in my pockets! So unless you've been passing notes in the locker room..." Daniel gave him a single exasperated glance for the levity and the Colonel lifted one shoulder in a faint shrug. "Didn't think so."

"And we have no idea how you were made to believe all this happened?"

Sam looked from Daniel to Teal'c, then across at the Colonel before she spoke. "Sir, I think we have to take it that everything we experienced on the other side of that wormhole was the result of a...a virtual-reality device. Something that enabled us to interact with each other – rather like the interface on P7J-989 – and making it all seem real. Given that nothing we experienced there has happened..."

The Colonel grated out, "Then why put us through that, Carter?" After his experience, the Colonel was a edgy – and no wonder. Knowing the Colonel's protectiveness towards his team, Janet could see how deeply the supposed loss of them had affected him – would affect him. Because although 'it was all a dream', SG-1 had seen it, lived it, experienced it. They'd definitely need therapy.

"I don't know, sir."

"Perhaps it was some form of an experiment."

The Colonel swivelled his chair to stare at Teal'c, who merely returned his gaze calmly. "A pretty cruel one," he snapped.

Yep, Janet would _definitely_ be keeping an eye on Colonel O'Neill over the next few days.

"A test?" Daniel suggested.

"Testing for what?"

"Well, you tell me, Jack."

General Hammond headed off an incipient clash of wills. "If it was for loyalty, both personal and professional, I'd say you passed with flying colours."

Janet watched them as SG-1 looked uncertainly at each other, weighing up the possibility in their minds.

Teal'c spoke first, "Perhaps the paper O'Neill found will explain why we endured such an ordeal."

Daniel's gaze dropped back down to the sheet of paper he held in his hands.

"I hope so."

**End of Part Six**

**End Forged Steel**

**END NOTES**: This was written as the second episode of one of two Virtual Seasons for Stargate SG-1 Season Six. The premise was that Daniel didn't 'die' in 'Meridian' and things continued on from there. However, after eight episodes, we were unable to get anything more from our writers, and the Virtual Season ceased. This story works as an individual one, but the mysteries of _san ya'kel_ will forever remain unplumbed since we were going to expand on his presence in the VS. Apologies if you're intrigued - some questions are never satisfactorily answered.


End file.
